A Co-Parenting Plan Example

Here’s a great example of why it helps to have a co-parenting vision and plan early:

My 2 year old asked me the other day if he could watch his favorite tv show, “Cars on the Road”. It’s a spin-off of the Disney Pixar Cars series and quite fun. We have let him watch 1-2 episodes at a time during travel or when we’ve been sick and I love that the episodes are only about 5-7 minutes long.

Since we don’t do regular screen time, I said no, he couldn’t watch it right now. He immediately went over to my partner and asked, “Papa, can I watch ‘Cars on the Road’”?

Oh boy, I thought. It’s starting! The classic “let me ask the other parent if the first one says no” tactic. My partner and I had been very clear in our parenting plan that we would be on the same page with decisions (although we would also be open to reviewing decisions one of us made if the other felt it needed adjustment) and put up a united front as parents.

Since we had made this commitment already, we had an easy response in place for handling the situation: “[Child’s name], mama just said no, so papa will also say no. Mama and papa say the same thing.”

And, here is something I didn’t do - take the fact that he reacted to my “no” and went to ask papa, personally. I didn’t interpret it as sneaky or ornery or bad. He is 2 and he is learning about boundaries and how things work. I simply interpreted it as a valid way for him to learn about whether his parents are on the same page.

I fully expect him to keep trying this at various times, because hey - it’s worth a shot if you really want something. But because we have a co-parenting plan for being on the same page in place, he will repeatedly learn that asking one parent is enough to get an answer to his question.

If you would like some guidance on creating your own co-parenting plan, let me know and I’d be happy to help!